Brothers & Sisters - Charlotte Wood [49]
They were a civilised group of people—all men except Emma—working in a white, light-filled space with its tilted desks set up at a sociable angle. They rarely designed actual buildings—everything they did was a renovation, a conversion, of one of the many difficultly small houses, apartments and offices owned and rented by the well-to-do of London.
Emma’s office was only a few tube stops from our flat, and I met her for lunch sometimes, but mostly I sat at home, too weary to struggle along in the fine bubbles of her wake. I couldn’t get warm. It was only September, and the flat was centrally heated, but I was doing nothing except sitting at the table in our white kitchen, whose window overlooked Vauxhall Bridge Road. Sometimes I ate porridge oats, dry, from a bowl. There was something solid and sustaining about them. You could make porridge in your own mouth, mashing the oats into a warm paste with teeth and saliva. I could eat two or three bowls at once. I looked in the newspaper for work. Sometimes I had baths to try to ease the cold ache in my sides and legs.
One evening Emma brought a friend home from work. When they came into the kitchen I slipped down from my stool, shoving the book I was reading to one side. I wished they’d found me doing something, being busy. I saw myself in the face of the microwave, stomach held in, eyes ringed with black, mouth thick with red lipstick.
‘Your voice sounds English already,’ I said to Emma, unable to speak to Jerome. He was black, and the most beautiful man I had ever seen. He grinned at me, knowing he’d caught me off balance. He wore a grey t-shirt, close-fitting, and dark jeans. His smile made the skin on the back of my neck feel hot and tight.
‘Not to me,’ he said. His voice sounded flat London. He was looking around at the kitchen, at its broad white counters, deep drawers, its double-glazed view of the traffic and the city beyond that. ‘Nice place,’ he added.
‘It’s not ours,’ said Emma quickly.
I looked at her curiously.
‘We’re paying rent,’ she went on.
Mates’ rates, I almost said, but it would not have been fair to her.
They wanted to know if I would like to come out to dinner with them. I knew Emma would have talked Jerome into this. He kept his body turned towards hers.
I didn’t. I said so. I didn’t have an English accent; I was not in England enough to acquire one. At home in the flat with the porridge and the paper, my voice was not needed at all. A friend had once said to me that I was like a shark that had to keep swimming—if I stopped talking I would die. It did feel as though I was sinking.
I stood up when the door had closed behind them and went into the bedroom. There was only one bedroom, with twin beds. There was a long mirror fixed to the wall between them. I looked at myself, lifted my Clash t-shirt and clawed a bit at my soft, white stomach. Then I lay down on my bed. Soon I was too cold, so I pulled off my jeans and got under the covers. After a while, I fell asleep, and didn’t wake when Emma came in.
My cousin Karen and her best friend were also living in London, somewhere real, that they had found for themselves. They were nursing in one of the hospitals in the centre of the city. They did a lot of night shifts, and had plenty of time to visit me during the day. Karen wore a leather jacket covered with studs and told me how she’d stamped on the toes of a man who’d shoved her at a Smiths gig. Her docs had extra-thick soles. Her face was set in a defensive snarl, which faded after an hour or so in the creamy quiet of our flat.
‘I’m fat,’ I said to my cousin—something I could never say to Emma.
‘I’m fat too,’ said Karen, who was looking in our fridge. Her spiked blonde hair brushed the shelves as she bent down to take out a block of cheese.
‘I’ve got a new way of losing weight,’ said Ruth from the living room. She was lying full length on the cream sofa, her boots splayed on the cushions.
‘Yeah?’ said Karen. We came to stand in the doorway, Karen holding the cheese.
‘The twist,’ said Ruth, staring down at her boots.
‘What do you mean?